Point Counter-Point: The “Kyle Schwarber Sucks or Doesn’t Suck” Edition

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Unknown Blogger has made several appearances here at Dubsism, and this probably won’t be the last. For purposes of full disclosure, T.U.B. only pops up on this site from time to time as he left the world of professional sports journalism a few years back vowing never to return, but occasionally he can’t help but having a rant here.

The Unknown Blogger: Kyle Schwarber Doesn’t Suck

I don’t know how I let J-Dub suck me into bullshit like this. It usually starts when we’re yelling at each other over Skype while watching some sporting event. The fucking guy has a talent for asking a question which at first seems easy to handle, but gets tricky once you start thinking about it.

But this isn’t one of those. J-Dub was on his “Schwarber Sucks” rant the other day right about the time that chin-bearded fatbag Schwarber craned a fastball into those beer-swilling cunts in the bleachers at Wrigley. This is where we have to get something straight…I’m a native New Yorker, and I have nothing but scorn and derision for Chicago. The four years I spent in journalism school at Northwestern, followed by a stint in the Chicago sports media taught me everything I needed to know about all fans of all Chicago teams ever.

They’re all cunts…infected, dripping, nasty-smelling cunts.

This applies ESPECIALLY to Cubs fans. I know there was a time when J-Dub posted a test to determine how good of a Cubs fan you are, but that’s really like deciding which child molester you’re hiring as a baby-sitter. You can always tell a dedicated Cubs fan because he’s in the bleachers at Wrigley in his Blackhawks t-shirt. The only reason I’m telling this (this part is important for any Cubs fans having this read to them) is because the only thing more obnoxious than a Chicago sports fan is the talking cheeseburger who runs this blog when he’s on one of his diatribes. I understand Kyle Schwarber looks more like a guy who should be catching chlamydia in his Peterbilt sleeper cab at a truck stop in South Bend than a guy who rips the shit of of major-league gas, but even I feel like I need to defend the guy against J-Dub’s inferior brand of bullshit.

The bottom line on Schwarber is so simple that even the average reader of this blog can figure it out counting on all nine of their toes. The “old-school” way of looking at baseball is dead. This is the era where we “Stat-Trac” home runs…people give a shit about things like launch angle, exit velocity, and simply blasting balls deep into the night. You ever seen what happens what happens when Schwarber gets a hold of a pitch? Have you ever tried to hit a major-league pitch? Nobody that can hit a ball on top of that new scoreboard in right field in Wrigley can even possibly suck.

Case closed.

J-Dub: Kyle Schwarber Sucks

Let’s see if I get The Unknown Blogger’s argument straight. Kyle Schwarber doesn’t suck because he can hit the ball a long way. That shouldn’t surprise me since he is the kind of guy who masturbates to those golf “long-drive” contests only seen on ESPN 7 at 2:30 a.m. I’m not kidding; T.U.B. loves those things and has yet to figure out why you never see those guys in PGA events. I’ve watched every minute of the U.S. Open that I can, and I’ll bet you a significant amount of cash that I won’t see one hole that is five football fields long (complete with yardage grid) and completely devoid of trees, bunkers, and/or water.

Long drives are nice in golf; there’s a huge advantage in hitting a shorter club to the green than a longer one. But baseball isn’t just about long drives, especially not in the National League, where you have to play in the field. That seems like the perfect place to start. Simply stated, Kyle Schwarber is the worst outfielder I’ve ever seen. That is saying something, because I’ve guys like Russsell Branyan, Pete Incaviglia, and Greg Luzinski.

The “time-capsule” for Schwarber’s blatant incompetence as an outfielder comes in last year’s infamous collision with then-Cub Dexter Fowler.

This could be the “anti-Tom Emanski” video. Schwarber does just about everything wrong that he can tracking that ball, but then again, he’s more a beer-league softball player than a major-league. The Parks and Rec League in Moline, Illinois is full of fat guys who can’t catch a ball and occasionally launch one.

Let’s talk about that for a minute. As of this writing, Schwarber does have 12 dingers…which is about 1/3 of his total hits. He also has 72 strike-outs…which oddly enough is just about 1/3 of his total plate appearances. I’m not a big believer in most statistics; I’m on record as saying batting average might be one of the most over-rated statistic in all of sports. I loved Jay Buhner; what’s not to love about a guy who slugs 40 homers and drives in 120. I’d rather have a Buhner-type than a Tony Gwynn who hits .350, then just becomes the front-end of a lot of double-plays because at the end of his career, he was closer to the size required to be considered a planer than Pluto is.

If you extrapolate Schwarber’s’ current numbers overt a 600 at-bat season, you end up with ~ 35 home runs, 90 RBIs, and…wait for it…220 strike-outs. I understand the era of baseball is long gone when racking 100 Ks in a season was the extremest of taboos, but for me to live with that many strike-outs (even with those power numbers), a player simply cannot be a much of a liability in the field as Schwarber is. Here’s why.

The K is the one out in baseball where nothing positive can happen. The strikeout brings you no fielder’s choice, no advancing a runner, and no sacrifices. That means a guy like Schwarber is going to kill one out of every three rallies in which he comes to the plate, and those numbers are only going to get worse once major-league pitchers figure out he couldn’t hit a breaking pitch if you filled Lake Michigan with them and chucked his ass off Navy Pier.

Of course, this is the part where I could have brought in one of those Saber-metric dickweeds to tell you all about some non-sense like “defensive runs” or any of that other mathematic voodoo they concoct, but there’s no need. All you have to do is tune in a Cubs game and watch Kyle Schwarber do his best impression of a bologna sandwich wearing an outfielder’s glove.